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The Hulk and I: Tim Rothâs arch villain The Abomination takes on the not-so-jolly-green giant in The Incredible Hulk

Alan Clarke is unlikely to have been impressed. Three protégés of the late British director are turning up in this season’s Hollywood blockbusters. Scum star Ray Winstone is already doing battle in the new Indiana Jones movie, while next month The Firm’s Gary Oldman returns as Lt Gordon for Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight. In between comes Tim Roth, who made his debut as the jobless skinhead in Clarke’s searing 1982 anti-Thatcher statement Made In Britain, pitching up in a new take on the screen’s favourite green super-grump, The Incredible Hulk.

Times have certainly changed, although 47-year-old Roth can hardly be accused of selling out. With the exception of playing a savage simian in Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes, the Dulwich-raised actor has steered clear of Hollywood. Perhaps still best known for playing the blood-soaked Mr Orange in Reservoir Dogs, Roth has collaborated with such luminous directors as Robert Altman (Vincent & Theo), Woody Allen (Everyone Says I Love You) and Wim Wenders (Don’t Come Knocking).

With this in mind, what on earth is he doing in The Incredible Hulk? After all, Ang Lee’s 2003 version starring Eric Bana was a resounding flop. ‘I did it because of my kids â they don’t get to see my films,’ says Roth, who has two pre-teen boys with former fashion designer Nikki Butler, his wife of 15 years, as well as a 25-year-old son from a previous relationship. ‘It’s a fun movie. And the Ang Lee version, by the way, had some good actors in it. It just didn’t connect. This is a very, very different deal. It’s The Incredible Hulk. It’s the gung-ho comic book thing. And I get to shoot a lot of guns.’

Roth will not be slapping on the green body paint, however. That’s the job of star, producer and co-writer Edward Norton, who plays Bruce Banner, the scientist with serious anger management issues. While the plot sees Banner searching for an antidote to the gamma-ray accident that turned him into a rampaging monster, Roth plays Emil Blonsky, a soldier who deliberately mutates into a beast of pure aggression, The Abomination, and goes gunning for the Hulk. ‘It’s a guy who catches a glimpse of something that is a new species, wants it and goes after it,’ says Roth.

While rumours suggest Norton and director Louis Leterrier fell out, Roth is diplomatic on the subject. ‘I didn’t see anyone,’ he laughs. ‘I was off doing my thing. I’m always in pursuit. So they’re always off acting, and I’m off going: âGrrr!â’ ‘My thing on the set was: âIs this scene cool?â, because my kids are going to kill me if it’s not.

‘I don’t know about the rest of the stuff, or what the scenes are. I don’t read the script anymore. I just concentrate on my element of it. And I hope there’s some cool s*** in there for my boys.’

With such an approach, it’s little wonder Roth has had such a variable career since he moved to the US in 1990, after work in Britain dried up. Nominated for an Oscar in 1996 for his foppish villain in Rob Roy, he then spent two years making movies â such as Hoodlum and Gridlock’d â he wishes he hadn’t, just so he could finance his only directorial effort to date, 1999’s bleak incest tale The War Zone. These days, even that process isn’t possible. ‘Now it would take four years, if you’re lucky,’ he sighs. ‘You’ve still got to pay the bills and get the kids through school.’

Recent collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola (Youth Without Youth) and Michael Haneke (the Funny Games remake) at least allowed him to fall back in love with acting.

But given that he has two directorial projects in the pipeline, including a version of King Lear penned by Harold Pinter, I wonder if the chief reason Roth took The Incredible Hulk was financial. Surely it allowed him to bag a big pay-cheque to put away for a rainy day? ‘You think I’m getting paid a lot of money for that?’ he retorts. ‘The whole nature of the film industry has changed now. We get paid much less.’